Vampires!
Posted by PC in Other Tech, Tech Trivia, tags: Energy conservation, Kill A Watt, Standby power
Since Halloween just went by I thought I would talk about vampires. You know, things that turn into bats and suck your blood! No, I’m just kidding. Well, I am talking about Vampires, but of a different sort.
Vampires, Wall Warts, Power Brick, these are all descriptive names for those transformers that plug into your wall socket and sap power out of the wall night and day regardless of whether or not anything is connected to them. Standby power is a minimal problem, but I did a little experiment recently to find out just how minimal.
For a two week test I plugged a 10 port power strip into my Kill-A-Watt. Into the strip I plugged in five wall warts. Three for power tool rechargers, and two cell phone chargers. I left these with no load, so there were no batteries attached or cell phones. Just the transformers themselves. Total power at the end of 14 days was 311 Watts. I was a little surprised. Extrapolating this with my electricity rate that’s about 7 cents per month. I’m not too concerned about 7 cents a month, but if I add up the dozen or so others that can be found around my home, then it becomes something on my radar.
Unfortunately, wall warts are not the only electricity vampires in your home. Almost all electrical appliances draw some current even when turned off. TV equipment and peripherals are all guilty. Computer equipment, even a radio that plugs directly into the wall and has no clock. It has a transformer inside of it and it probably is a vampire.
What can you do about it? Well, there’s probably little you can do because some of these devices pull power to make them more convenient. For example, you could install a power strip on your television equipment and use the switch to power it off. This will buy you pennies a month but require you to reconfigure your clocks, and any other volatile memory devices in your entertainment center. You also will not be able to turn it on with the remote until you flip the switch. There are “smart” switches that can be controlled by remote controls, but again unless you like reconfiguring your television clock every time you turn it on, don’t bother.
The most important thing is to be aware. The Kill-A-Watt is a great tool for figuring your power consumption, and it works on more than just these low power devices. Run it on your refrigerator to see if it still holds up to the factory described energy efficiency ratings. If not, you may want to service it or at least spend some time cleaning the coils. It is useful when determining the right size for a UPS. It’s useful for checking the different power saving modes of your computer. See if you can accept the difference between hibernate and sleep to save a couple minutes of start up time.
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I really had no idea that something like a radio without a clock could suck the power out. I know things like the television and computer but I didn’t realize it was all of them. When I think of all the things that I keep plugged in on a regular basis…it’s astounding. I’m probably paying a ton in extra money each money. Thank you for this, I am going to start unplugging my stuff from now on and see what the difference is in the bill!
You’d think that in this day and age – with the technology we have along with our concerns surrounding the climate and energy use – appliances like TV’s, VCR’s, DVD players and the like would have internal clocks in them powered by small batteries, like the ones in our computers do.
But until then, if you’re not too bothered about your appliances showing the correct time (get a watch or put a clock on your wall) and you also want to do your bit to conserve energy, here’s a little tip for you…
On your way to bed at night, get into the habit of passing by your main fuse-box and simply flicking the circuit breaker switch that controls all of your wall-sockets for the downstairs or main living areas of your house.
The only thing you really need to be powering over night is your fridge/freezer, so be sure that they are wired up on a separate circuit. Or you’ll be eating stinky sludge for breakfast…
Even your computer will pull some power when turned off. That’s even with the battery backed clock.
The idea to flip everything off at night might be viable in some circumstances. For me, it is important to keep lighting available at night for safety and for the children. It is also not possible to see the clock on the wall if the lights are out. My computer stuff needs to stay on, etc.
My PVR records shows I set up at night. My laptop backs itself up to Mozy at night. So on and so forth. It would take some engineering to get everything to work properly. For example, if I disconnect my cable modem, router, servers, printers, and computers from the network I would have to make sure everything came back online every morning in an orderly fashion.
1. Cable modem
2. Router
3. Linux server that runs DHCP, DNS among other things
4. Packet 8 VoIP ATA
5. Windows Server for media share and family member’s data
6. Network printer
That would probably be 7-10 minutes, and if all that was turned off I would not get my laptop backed up and my automatic scripts to back up my server wouldn’t run. Not to mention there would be no phone overnight.
It’s a mess.
Between my TV, my decorative lights, my blowdryer and hairstraightener (which, albeit, isn’t on all the time), radio and cellphone charger, I could sure use a kill-a-watt. Honestly, I was wondering how to save on electricity. I know a few cents don’t seem like they matter, but they do! I’m just imagining where those few extra pennies could go to instead of my *sigh* electric bill.
And I thought garlic was the only way to kill a vampire =)